Corrina Owens on fixing what's broken in GTM

Throughout her eight years of launching ABM programs at B2B SaaS companies, Corrina Owen, Founder at Fractional ABM, has seen one thing over and over again: overcomplicated GTM systems.

That looks like rigid qualification processes, funnel stages that don't map to how buyers behave, and marketing and sales working toward different goals.

"It really just goes to show you how important your systems are," Corrina says. "If there's any breakdown in communication, whether it's tagging the wrong account or creating duplicate records, there's just too much that can get lost and muddied."

Her fix is to simplify at every layer: how leads get routed, how buyers are segmented, which signals you act on, and how marketing and sales work together. Here's how she does it.

1. Fix routing and ensure reps are equipped with the right context

Corrina often sees inbound systems that create more problems than they solve.

"I don't find that many companies even have a calendar system in place that routes to the right rep," Corrina says. "And then, once they're on that call, the prospect doesn't feel like the rep even knows them because they're sticking to one process that works the same across everybody."

The fix is to automate tagging, enrichment, and routing before a rep ever touches the lead.

"If you really know who your ICP is, you should know if they're a target account of yours, if they're the right persona, and who that belongs to," she says.

Corrina recently worked with a company that had gone through multiple acquisitions, leaving them with several product lines, fragmented systems, and no clear way to route leads to the right person. She built a workflow that solved this through four steps:

• Tag appropriately: When a lead hits a demo request form, automatically tag it in the CRM to reference the correct product line based on which form they submitted.

• Enrich with context: Pull in past opportunities, past call recordings, recent web activity, and any existing relationship history.

• Synthesize for the rep: Condense that context into a digestible format so reps don't have to dig through multiple systems.

• Alert the right people: Route as a Slack alert to both the BDR and the AE account owner so they can act immediately with full visibility.

The result was a 15% increase in conversion rate within two weeks of launch.

That workflow is exactly what Spara is built to operationalize at scale.

Spara acts as the connective layer between your website, your CRM, and your team. It automatically qualifies and enriches inbound leads, routes to the correct rep and books meetings, and packages the conversation context into a single, usable view, so reps never start a conversation blind.

2. Segment your buyers into two categories

Most teams overcomplicate their funnel with top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, and bottom-of-funnel stages. Corrina says this creates inconsistent system signals about where a prospect actually belongs.

Her approach is simpler: break it down to two categories based on one question.

"Is this person actively in sales conversations? Or are they not?" she says. "That's the simplest way to break it down."

• In market: Buyers showing signals that they're ready to buy. Show them testimonials, case studies, or invite them to a custom workshop.

• Not in market: Buyers who aren't showing buying signals, but you want to stay top of mind. Run brand awareness plays so they associate your brand with the problem you solve.

"Those are really two categories in my mind that any company should be thinking about," Corrina says. "And we definitely overcomplicate it."

3. Build programs around the signals that actually matter

Teams have access to hundreds of signals they could track at any given time. But Corrina finds that only two or three really matter for any given business.

"Those are the ones that you double down on," she says. "Those are the ones you have evergreen campaigns and processes built around."

At Gong, Corrina identified that many of the champions they had built relationships with at SMB accounts were leaving those companies and going to their target account list in the enterprise space. The job change signal became the foundation for an always-on program.

• Track the signal: Monitor when known champions change jobs, especially when they move to target accounts.

• Reach out immediately: Send a simple message. "’Congrats.' That's it." No ask. Just acknowledgment.

• Offer something useful: Include a gift or a relevant resource. In Corrina's case, it was a 90-day checklist for new sales leaders.

• Follow up with value: Continue nurturing with content relevant to their new role, waiting for buying signals before pushing for a conversation.

"It was just a give, but it was an offering that was paired with a signal at the right time," Corrina says. "We have the opportunity to do that now at scale."

4. Bring marketing into the deal team

Most companies treat marketing as a top-of-funnel function. Once a meeting is booked or an opportunity is created, marketing hands off and sales takes over.

Corrina sees this as a missed opportunity.

"Sales is only trained on hand-raisers as a signal. That's what they know to do," she says. "When you think about it through an account lens, you're opening up a Pandora's box for how you can speak to an account, how you can speak to different personas, what effective multithreading looks like, and when you should do it."

The shift happens when sales starts treating marketing as a valued member of the deal team, bringing them into account planning sessions and sharing what's possible from a marketing perspective.

"It becomes something where you're not handing off the ball once a meeting or an opportunity gets created," Corrina says. "You're working hand-in-hand with the sales team all the way through."

When marketing has revenue accountability, they start thinking beyond top-of-funnel. They think about deal acceleration, closed-won plays, and retention. Both teams start speaking the same language instead of having competing priorities that ultimately don’t serve the buyer.

Final takeaway

Corrina's playbook comes down to simplifying at every layer: fix routing so reps get context before they touch a lead, segment buyers into two categories based on whether they're in market or not, build programs around the few signals that actually matter, and bring marketing into the deal team with shared revenue accountability.

"We definitely overcomplicate it," Corrina says. "And that's where systems can break down."

Spara supports this kind of infrastructure. When a buyer visits a site, fills out a form, or asks a question, Spara can engage immediately, qualify fit, answer questions, and route to sales with full context when a human conversation makes sense.